Californians Moving Away from Both Major Political Parties

Newly released voter registration data for California shows that the percentage of the population registering as either Republican or Democrat has dropped since the last gubernatorial election in 2010.

The data published Tuesday by Secretary of State Debra Bowen shows a total of 17,660,486 Californians are registered to vote, up about 700,000 from 2010. That total represents 73.26% of all eligible voters in the state.

Despite the increase in the total number of registered voters, both parties saw a decline in their percentage of the total. The percentage of voters registering as Democrats dropped from 44.6% in 2010 to 43.5% this year. The dropoff among those registered as Republicans was sharper, from 30.8% in 2010 to 28.6% this year.

The drop in registration among Republicans and Democrats is matched by an uptick among those who select no party preference (from 20.1% in 2010 to 21.1% now) and those selecting another party. The other category increased from 4.5% to 6.9% since 2010. There are five other qualified political parties in California, including the Libertarian Party, Green Party, American Independent Party, Americans Elect Party, and the Peace and Freedom Party.

Not surprisingly, San Francisco county had the highest percentage of Californians registered as Democrats, 56.27 percent. It also had the highest percentage registering as having no party preference, 30.66 percent. Just 8.49% of voters in San Francisco registered as Republicans, the lowest percentage of any county in the state.

The deadline for registering to vote in time for the June 3 primary election is May 19th.